


Expect The Unexpected

by ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi



Series: Irondad & Spiderson Dabbles [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Asexual Awareness Week, Asexual Character, Asexual Peter Parker, Asexuality, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, May doesn't know yet, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Other, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter's insecure, Precious Peter Parker, She's a supportive mom tho, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony is a supportive dad, Tumblr, god bless this family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-08 18:13:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16434353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi/pseuds/ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi
Summary: Happy Asexual Awareness Week!!!The following morning, Peter woke up in the room Tony had gave him in the compound- he must’ve fallen asleep during the movie again and got moved back into his room while he was sleeping. God, he had to stop doing that.  Peter rubbed his eyes and yawned as he sat up, swinging his feet off of the bed and going over to fix his absolute mess of a bed head.  He almost didn’t notice what was in front of the dresser-vanity’s mirror until his brush knocked it off and there was a soft clank. It… it was a little ace pin. But, that wasn’t his, he didn’t really have anything of it and hadn’t told anyone yet. There was a little note attached, though:Thought you might like this, enjoy your week.-Tony





	Expect The Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> Late-Happy Asexual Awareness Week! I know the community says that we aren't real or just faking it or flat out not LGBT+ in general, but that's not true. We're valid- from the cishet asexuals to the gay/bi/poly/pan/aro/etc and transgender asexuals, we all matter and are all welcomed in LGBT+ spaces. We're not broken, sex positive or repulsed. We're human, and don't need to have sex to have healthy and loving relationships (romantic or platonic).  
> I love the head-canon of asexual Peter, mostly because I can relate on a deep level. I've had many an experience with aphobia and ignorance about my asexuality, so I may or may not incorporate some of my own fears and insecurities here. Different people have different experiences- this is just my take. (I might have also incorporated some of my experiences with being a broke dude too, but that's just self-indulgence of relating to my favorite character).

It was one of their lab days- right after the bell rang, Peter ran out of the school and looked for the car Happy usually picked him up instead of going to change in the alley for patrolling. However, instead of the shiny black car, Peter found a sleek red lamborghini waiting for him in the front of the student pick up. Usually, when it was Mr Stark picking him up, it meant that something big was happening, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Peter could see Flash in the corner of his eyes with a pissed off look that usually donned his face whenever he was getting picked up for his “Stark Internship”, and he couldn’t help the grin that was tugging on his lips. He could hear him whispering about how Mr Stark was just pitying him and didn’t actually care about him, but Peter did his best to convince himself that that wasn’t true. This was supposed to be a good week, and stupid comments from Flash weren’t going to screw that up for him. Not this time.

“Hey, Mr Stark,” Peter tossed his backpack into the bask before climbing into the passenger seat. With Happy, he sat in the back, but then again, so did Mr Stark when Happy drove. “I thought Happy was going to pick me up. Is everything okay?”

“What, does something have to be wrong for me to be here? Am I not allowed to pick you up every once in a while?” The man asked, waiting for Peter to buckle his seat belt before driving. 

“Yes- I mean, no. That’s not what I-” Peter stuttered, mentally slapping himself.

“Hey, relax there, Underoos. I’m just busting your chops,” Tony smirked, taking one hand off the wheel to pat the kid’s shoulder. “Happy had the day off today, so I’m here. You want to grab any food for the ride?”

“Uh yeah, that sounds good. I have some money on me. “

“Pete, you don’t have to pay. We talked about this, remember? I got it. And no, you’re not paying me back. You’re a kid, you save your money. I really don’t need it.”

“Right, sorry, Mr Stark.” 

“Oh god, let’s not get started on the _sorry_ or _mister_ talks now.”

They took a drive to Panera Bread, seeing how Peter was craving mac ‘n’ cheese, and got their little road snacks. “If you could, try not to get cheese on the seats, kid,” Tony said before handing Peter his bag. 

“I’ll be careful, Mr Stark. I don’t think I’ve ever really messed up one of your cars before, so,”

Instead of taking the highway towards the tower or compound, Tony had begun to drive in the direction of the Parkers’ apartment. “Um, Mr Stark? I think you took the wrong turn,” Peter spoke after a mouthful of food. 

“No no, I meant to go this way. I know you don’t have school tomorrow because of that whole teacher workshop thing, so I thought you might want to come up to the compound for your day off? I already asked May, just so you know. She said it was fine as long as you got your homework done while there.”

“Really? Oh man, that’s great! Thanks, I’m surprised Aunt May said ‘yes’.”

“Didn’t take a lot of persuasion, actually. Maybe she’s finally starting to warm up to me?”

“Yeah, maybe she is.”

When they pulled up in front of the complex, Tony let Peter out of the car and then waited in it across the street. The teen ran up the stairs before realizing that his keys were in his backpack that was still in Mr Stark’s car. So, he did what any reasonable teen would do- use his spider powers to quickly scurry out one of the hall’s windows and crawl in through one of the unlocked windows in their apartment. Yeah, perfect plan. Sure, it was risky to do during daylight, but his sixth sense, or “spidey-sense” as he liked to call it, wasn’t going crazy, so there must not have been any onlookers. Peter grabbed the small red duffle bag he usually brought with him up to the compound over night and packed a set of pajamas and clothes for the next day along with his toothbrush, phone charger, and extra web fluids. The suit was already in his backpack down in the car, so that was pre-checked off the list. With that, Peter left a little sticky note on the fridge for his aunt that said, “ _Thanks for letting me go up to the compound, May! -Peter ♡_ ” and then proceeded to leave the same way he entered-via window- since he wouldn’t be able to relock the door without his keys.

Peter dropped his bag in the back alongside his backpack and then plopped back into the front seat. “Alright, how am I just noticing that horrible pun on your shirt?” Tony asked him with a raised eyebrow. He was wearing a purple shirt that read _”What did one cell say to his sister cell when she stepped on his foot? **Mitosis** ”_

“What? It’s a good pun!” Peter laughed.

“We need to update your sense of humor this time, kid.”

“You can’t update what’s already perfect.”

“And we’ll get it there. You have everything you need?”

“Mhm, all good to go.”

“Got your suit?”

“Yep, brought it to school with me.”

“What about your keys?”

“In my backpack. I told you, I’m all ready.”

“Hold on,” Tony turned to face him now. “If your keys are in your bag, how’d you get inside your apartment? I know May doesn’t leave it unlocked.”

“I, erm… might’ve crawled through the window.”

“Next time, just come back down grab your keys, Pete.”

For the next twenty minutes, they discussed different projects that they’d been working on mixed with a few typical parent questions such as “How was your day?” and “Did that asshat bother you again?”. Once they were out of the city and heading upstate, Peter grew quieter and watched as the green trees and landscapes rolled on by and Tony turned up the volume on the radio's classic rock station a little bit. Sure, he's seen it a few times now, but it was still really beautiful. It was a nice change from the view a city had to offer. Peter rested his head on his hand, eventually switching over to the other one after his wrist began to go numb from the weight. 

“Well, that's new. You getting engaged or something?” Tony broke the silence, motioning towards the slim black ring on Peter's middle finger. 

“First of all, engagement rings go in the _ring finger_ , not this one, Mr Stark.”

“And second of all?”

“I just, uh, saw it in a store and liked it, so..”

“Kid, you're a terrible liar.”

“What? I -I just really like the ring!”

“Alright, I'll let you and your celibacy ring be. “

“ _Please_ don’t call it that again. That's just, no. No. “

When they finally arrived at the compound around five, Peter grabbed his backpack from the backseat and Tony grabbed his duffle bag. “So, what'd you want to work on first? I'm thinking we start one project, take a dinner break, finish it up, and then end the night with a movie. “

“Maybe the web formula? I brought my notes like you asked and have a few ideas.”

“That doesn't surprise me at all,” They stepped into the elevator and FRIDAY took them up to the third floor with the labs. As per usual during elevator rides, Peter backed up a bit into the corner and Tony kept a hand on his shoulder- being stuck under a collapsed building did bring about some claustrophobia after all. Tony dropped Peter's duffle bag outside the elevator door after they stepped out and led the teen down the hall to the lab that they usually worked on Spidey-stuff in. The compound was oddly empty, but Tony said most of the others were actually down at the tower to get whatever stuff they left in storage there. Peter set his backpack on one of the few empty tables in the lab and pulled out his notebook that held all his notes and research on his webs. Sure, on scraps of paper and in a high school chemistry notebook probably isn’t the best place for that, but it worked for him. He placed the web shooters themselves on the table as well in case they had to tinker with the nozzles. Better safe than sorry. 

Their first mission was to get some stronger webs- after one incident of a web snapping mid-swing and Peter plummeting a few feet before recovering, Tony was very keen on there being no more repeats of that. What better way to improve the odds than creating strong webs? So, Tony worked on the web shooters to make sure that nothing was malfunctioning there and that way they’d be able to handle a little more density. It was sort of like the different kinds of leads in mechanical pencils- .7 would slip right out of a .9 pencil and a .9 wouldn’t even fit correctly in a .7 pencil. Whilst the mechanic worked on that, Peter was testing out the different formulas they’d come up with, and at least once used the phrase _”It’s not an explosion if the fire alarm doesn’t go off”_. 

Whilst the spiderling worked away at the chemicals, he heard his phone go off with the Kim Possible text alert sound. Everyone in his phone had a different alert noise so that way Peter would know who was texting him each time- this was May. “Mr Stark, could you hand me my phone please? That was a text from Aunt May.” Since she found out about his Spider-Man-ing, they’d set a rule that he’d have to try and respond to her messages as soon as he could (especially when he was patrolling or off at the tower or compound) so she could make sure he wasn’t in trouble. It was understandable, Peter didn’t blame her.

“You’re young, you can reach it.”

“Pleeeeease?” Puppy dog eyes, give him the eyes.

“Fine,” Tony sighed after trying to fight off The Eyes. He stood up from besides the kid and grabbed his phone that sat besides his backpack. “One day, that trick isn’t going to work on me anymore.” The screen was still lit up from the notification, showing off Peter’s lock screen. Usually, it was a picture from the top of a building during patrols, but this time, it was just four colors lined up almost like a flag- black, grey, white, and purple (in that order). “I liked your old background, you should send it to me.” He handed Peter his phone.

 

“Thanks, I got it from the top of the Times Square building.”

“That’s a ways out of your jurisdiction, don’t you think?”

“I went for the picture, and it was worth the insanely bright lights.”

“So, what do these colors mean?”

“What?” Peter looked up from where he had been typing. “Oh, that’s, erm, nothing. Just a nice color scheme, y’know? I-I was thinking about changing it back anyways..”

“Whatever you want, Underoos. It’s your wallpaper.” It was painfully obvious that the kid was hiding something, but Tony wasn’t going to push it just yet. Maybe after Peter inevitably passed out during their movie night, he could look into it? 

That’s exactly what ended up happening. They’d been watching Star Trek, which Pete swore was better than the fantastic Star Wars trilogy, when he drifted off all curled up against Tony who’d been absent-mindedly messing with the sleeping teen’s curls. He should move him off to his room soon, shouldn’t he? First, he was going to see if he could uncover this strange mystery. So, he looked up the color scheme and was met with a few different looking flags, easily finding the one from Peter’s phone. _Asexuality_ it had said. Confused, Tony clicked on the link:

“ _ **Asexuality** is the lack of sexual attraction to others, or low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity. It may be considered the lack of a sexual orientation, or one of the variations thereof, alongside heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality._ ”

As he continued to read, he found something on the black ring he’d saw Peter wearing.

“ _In the asexual community, there are many symbols and signs, from playing cards to orientation flags, that we use to identify ourselves. Today I want to focus on a key symbol in the asexual community, the ace ring. What an ace ring is, is a black ring worn on the middle finger. Typically, the ace ring is placed on the right hand, but it’s not a set rule. The designs on the ring, the style, and the meaning of the ring varies between ace to ace, but at the base it is away to show off our asexual pride to other people and potentially meet other asexuals._ ” 

The more research he did, the more Tony found himself understanding. The mitosis shirt from before, asexual reproduction. But why all now and at once? Oh. Oh- it was the awareness week. Yeah, the pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall together now. What Tony didn’t understand was why Peter had been trying so hard to hide it from him. What’d he think would happen, he’d start to hate him? That was ridiculous- Tony couldn’t care less about who Peter was into and in which ways. He’d only have a problem if whoever it was wasn’t treating his kid right. Now, how to broach the subject of that in actual words? Well, maybe he didn’t need words..

The following morning, Peter woke up in the room Tony had gave him in the compound- he must’ve fallen asleep during the movie again and got moved back into his room while he was sleeping. God, he had to stop doing that. Peter rubbed his eyes and yawned as he sat up, swinging his feet off of the bed and going over to fix his absolute mess of a bed head. He almost didn’t notice what was in front of the dresser-vanity’s mirror until his brush knocked it off and there was a soft clank. It… it was a little ace pin. But, that wasn’t his, he didn’t really have anything of it and hadn’t told anyone yet. There was a little note attached, though:

_Thought you might like this, enjoy your week._  
_-Tony_

He knew? Oh god, how’d he know? He wasn’t supposed to know yet- no one was! Hell, he barely found out last month! Well, it didn’t seem like he was upset, so that was good. Peter put the little pin on and finished up his morning routine before walking out to the main room where Tony had been attempting to make breakfast-key word being “attempting”. “Mornin’, kid. Sleep well?”

“Um, yeah. I did. You?” Peter asked, looking for a way to help out. 

“Eh, as fine as I ever sleep,” Tony shrugged. He paused for a moment and glanced back at the teen. “So, you like your pin?”

“Mhm, it’s great,” It really was. “Just… how’d you know? I didn’t tell anyone.” 

“Peter, you are the worst secret-keeper I’ve ever met. It amazes me how only your friend and your aunt found out that you’re Spidey. Seriously.”

“Was it the, uh, wallpaper?”

“That was a big part of it, yeah.”

“And you’re not... mad? Or anything?”

Tony turned to face Peter now, his expression serious. “Kid, why would I be mad? You’re still you, now I just know a little more about you. It’s not like I found out your selling illegal drugs or anything, this shouldn’t and doesn’t affect how I see you. You’re still my kid. I couldn’t care less if you were gay, straight, bi, or asexual. I’m just wondering why you thought you had to hide it from me?”

“Well,” Peter began, fidgeting a bit now. Yeah, he should’ve known that was coming. “It’s just that a lot of people in the community aren’t very ace-friendly.. They call us attention seekers and needing to be “fixed” and that we’re calling ourselves this because we “can’t get laid”,” He used the air quotes out loud. “Broken is another common one..”

“Well, they’re couldn’t be any farther from the truth, kid. And if anyone tries to tell you any of that, tell them that they can take it up with Iron Man,” Tony paused again. “No one has said any of that to you, right, Peter?”

“N-no, no,” Peter shook his head. “You’re the only one that knows.”

And with that said, a rare Tony Stark hug was initiated.

“At least now I don’t have to worry about having The Talk with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings, lads and lassies (and all y'all pals in between)!  
> If you're going to comment something against asexuality, can you please not waste my time? I'm tired enough of the ignorance as it is. However, if you merely have a question, I'd be happy to answer :) After all, nobody is born fully woke. Just please, don't be an ass. Thanks  
> \- <3 Sam  
> (Tumblr: ssssssssssssssssssspiderboi )


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